


dawn-light

by Rayellah, Sparethenumbers



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, POV Alternating, Temporary Character Death, cyclical narritave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rayellah/pseuds/Rayellah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparethenumbers/pseuds/Sparethenumbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atem was alive once, probably. Dead once, too. <em>Probably.</em> Now he isn't, only has a vague memory of what both states might have been like, touches his neck where the chain of a necklace might sit, if he was wearing one, and wonders why he feels half-missing.</p><p>And Yuugi, well, right <em>now</em> he's cough-coughing from his hospital bed. Two broken ribs, significant bruising, internal bleeding. Atem doesn't <em>say</em> You Don't Know The Way To The Afterlife, but he thinks it, with a selfish spark of joy like a flame igniting. That's okay. He got lost on his way there, too.</p><p>--</p><p>In which atem is Death, or maybe just dead, and Yuugi is dying and dying and dying and</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the fifth time yuugi dies

**Author's Note:**

> A new fic I’m working on, with my girlfriend, whose username here is Sparethenumbers.
> 
> Post-canon. It starts as platonic Puzzleshipping, that will eventually become romantic later on, once Atem remembers canon events & Yuugi's "first life" (aka manga canon) with Atem as the concept of death, or maybe just a ghost who kills people (ooh mysteries).
> 
> Each of Yuugi's deaths corresponds with an event in the manga.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, fair warning, this one is going to involve a lot of death and dying, but A) I promise this is going to have a happy ending and B) considering the nature of the plot, this is the kind of story where someone (Yuugi) might die many times and still walk out of it okay.  
>  
> 
> So. Ghost AU. Enjoy?

Sometimes Yuugi dreams. He dreams he's dying, dreams he's dying and someone is there with him - this tangle of limbs and hair that _looks_ like his, a familiar silhouette that hurts Yuugi too much to try and focus on, hurts like trying to count birds against the sun. But Yuugi looks anyway because: in some strange way, this figure feels like home.

What he says in the dream varies. Sometimes it's:  _I'm scared_. Sometimes it's:  _I'm not ready to be alone._ Sometimes:  _please._

And each time, no matter what he says in this dream, the figure just says something to the effect of:  _It's okay, partner, I'm here—_

And Yuugi wakes up.

* * *

 

Atem was alive once, probably. Dead once, too. _Probably_. Now he isn't, only has a vague memory of what both states might have been like, touches his neck where the chain of a necklace might sit, if he was wearing one, and wonders why he feels half-missing.

Living was like this, Atem thinks: sunlight. gold. _warmth_. The way an heirloom made of gold hung like a weight around his neck. The way something metallic would catch the light, and there was so much light when he was alive, the sun hot and bright like life, like living. Like:  _that._ Like that. Laughter and friends that he had when he was alive, and then when he was not-dead-not-alive.

They called him: Atem. He thinks so now, can't imagine forgetting that name, though he knows, the way he knows his bones hold him up, the way he knows the cobra holds venom, the way he knows falafel is wonderful, he  _knows_ , that he forgot his name once but now: Atem. They called him Atem, and they called him.

Death, and they prayed  _please_ don't take me away, you can have my-enemies my-friends, you can have all of that if you don't touch me, raw meat and honey cakes and flowers and _blood-on-altars-if-you-take-someone-else-today_  if you _leave-me-alone._

But now he is just Atem.

, and all of Atem's thoughts converge on the word  _ **NO**_ and he reaches out as if to grab Yuugi's wrist.

Yuugi is

and

Yuugi is

and

Yuugi's eyelids move as if he's going to blink and then he  _stop!_ s in one sharp-sudden moment. Just stops, still like the dead are still because now Yuugi is: still. Yuugi is: not moving. Yuugi is:

, is:

g

o

n

e

_again._

 

That's the fourth time.

But that time isn't what Atem wants you to know about, yet. Maybe not ever. Give it time, this story is difficult, isn't it? It's not word-shaped, not really.

That _was_ the fourth time.

The **fifth** time Yuugi dies, he's in a hospital room, he's cough-coughing from his hospital _bed_. Two broken ribs, significant bruising, internal bleeding. That sort of thing. This isn't an uncommon way for Yuugi to die, beaten-to-death, for Yuugi to die this way, it's just the way things are, sometimes.

Atem doesn't _say_  You Don't Know The Way To The Afterlife, Yuugi, but he _thinks_ it, with a selfish spark of joy like a flame igniting. It's okay, though. He got lost on his way there, too. It's not Yuugi's fault Yuugi keeps coming back every time he dies.

But: hospital room. The act of being Death. Atem is in a lot of different places, which is part of being Death, or a dead thing, but mostly he's sitting in the chair next to Yuugi's bed, listening to the sounds of internal bleeding and a sluggish heartbeat.

"Is someone there?" Yuugi asks, and there's blood creeping into his throat and back down again like river-tides, back and forth and back. The blood makes it difficult for Yuugi to speak, probably, or so Atem assumes. He doesn't need to breathe in order to speak. If he did, he would say  _very_ little indeed.

Especially because he's been startled. He should be somewhere else now, but he isn't because he is with Yuugi because Yuugi is  _here_.

"Who are you?" Yuugi asks in a whisper because he can  _see_ Atem now. Atem. Now.

(Yuugi can see Atem when he's on the verge of death, he always can, that's something that stays the same no matter which time this is.)

 

          "Atem,"

                          says Atem

                                               and so he _is_.

 

"You look like me, a little bit," Yuugi tells him, with perfect dying words, perfect rattling coughs, perfect sluggish heartbeat. " _Are_ you me?"

"I don't know," says Atem, and doesn't explain, because how could he explain? How could he  _begin_ to explain that he looks like Yuugi, sort of, but not  _exactly_ like Yuugi, maybe because Yuugi is perfect, or maybe because fate decreed it be so, or maybe because Yuugi is the half of him that doesn't fit together, anymore, but should, like one piece of a puzzle being jammed into the wrong spot. "I don't think so."

"Am I dead?" Yuugi asks, with this flavor of  _hope_  sprinkled on his words that Atem can taste on the tip of his tongue.

"No," says Atem, like the act of snapping a neck. "You have..."

(Yuugi has:  _two hours, twenty-six minutes, nine seconds... eight seconds... seven seconds..._ )

                                                                                                                                                      "some time left,"

"Are you death?" asks Yuugi, who is now trying to get a better look at Atem, sitting up with this wide-eyed curiosity that is plain as day even with the black eye keeping Yuugi's left eye from  _getting_ wide, and he's trying to sit up but Atem, who is not-alive, feels like he should put a hand on Yuugi's shoulder, to comfort him, or come closer so he's right in Yuugi's field of view, but he doesn't want to (can't afford to) touch Yuugi, doesn't want to send Yuugi away too soon.

"My name was Atem once," Atem (who is not-alive) murmurs. He smiles, though. All teeth.

"Can I come with you?"

* * *

 

Atem! _doesn’t!_ **_sleep!_ ** because Atem! _doesn’t! **dream!**_ but if he _d i d_ it would probably go s  _omething_ like:

There's a light around Yuugi's hair, golden and glowing, and Yuugi smiles through these shiny tears, smiles like a bear trap locked tightly around an ankle, this beautiful hurting-metal clamp of teeth- _through_ -flesh.

Atem tells him:  _I'm scared._ He tells him:  _I'm lonely._ He tells him:  _please_.

And Yuugi smiles and takes Atem's hands and says:  _It's okay, you can have my memories—_


	2. no one can stop him

Atem wonders why he can remember a pendant on a chain, gold and glistening, parts of a puzzle clicking into place, amnesia and destiny and fear and friendship and--

Well--

He can't remember the rest. Somehow he feels lost memory is nothing new.

He knows, though, in his stone-still heart, that this was when he met Yuugi first, that this was when he learned friendship from Yuugi and he  _can't remember the rest._

(Oh, he is haunted.)

* * *

 

 

“Hey,” Yuugi says to his hallucination. “It’s… been a while.” His heartbeat feels slow, sluggish, and he feels serene, held tightly and safely in some place he can never find when he’s fully awake. He has an exam tomorrow but here he is: awake. The image of his dead friend-not-friend makes a sound that reminds him of a saw blade caught on clothing, a sort of considering _hm_. The figure, the illusion, the hallucination, reaches his hand out in order to tangle it in Yuugi’s hair, and Yuugi watches the way Atem (had he always been called Atem? Yuugi can’t remember when he started calling him that) goes dead-still, the way that _only_ the dead are still. His eyes on Yuugi are hungry, dark.

If he wasn’t surely a product of Yuugi’s imagination, Yuugi would swear Atem was about to eat him alive.

Yuugi moves his hand through Atem’s hair in return, easy as his exhausted state allows him to move. Atem begins to shake like a leave, shudders causing his whole body to tremble.

His eyes never leave Yuugi.

They are as hungry as the death of all things.

* * *

 

In the eleventh life: Yuugi is seven years old and Yuugi’s tooth has fallen out; Atem is angry and Atem is hungry and Yuugi’s tooth has fallen out, pieces of him no longer attached and the tooth is a dead thing and therefore: Atem can claim it, it’s not against the rules. Yuugi wouldn’t miss it, not sitting as he is in his home, drumming feet against the bed, restless. ly.

Restlessly.

Like that.

And Atem is so so angry that Yuugi has to repeat all of this, because he died again and Atem just wants to see Yuugi not die, not to die-before-twenty-years, not to die before twenty, please, Yuugi, don’t die before twenty. And so Atem turns his back on Yuugi and goes elsewhere, is met by the sting of sand and rapid-fire bullets.

Atem lets himself be war, for a bit.

This helps.

It’s not supposed to. It does.

When Atem returns to Yuugi, he’s fifteen years old, permanent teeth grown in where the others fell out and Atem takes a few seconds to collect all of the old baby teeth.

They melt like sugar in his mouth, and he is Death and Death is hungry. Death is hungry hungry hungry.

Yuugi is fifteen and he lives with his grandpa while his parents work overseas. His grandpa’s hair is like old, dull knives. There’s a girl who Yuugi befriends, all brown hair and smiling and bright-blue-eyed and with a determination that reminds Atem, a little bit, of the times in-between being war-and-other-things. And Atem likes when Yuugi makes friends, and so he whispers to Yuugi at night, tells him about how long his friend has left to live, whispers ( _Anzu has: seventy-six years, two months, nine days, four hours, thirteen minutes, six seconds… five seconds… four seconds…_ ) because compared to Yuugi, she has _so much time,_ Yuugi’sfriend has _so much time,_ all of Yuugi’s life this time and _then some_ and it’s not _fair,_ but the _**time.**_

Atem watches as Yuugi wakes up in the dark, gasping, and Atem stops whispering, listens to Yuugi’s terrified breathing, eyes wideinthedark, and Atem’s heart is a spear-soldier of old falling to the ground with a clatter. Atem’s heart is just the blood.

Yuugi should _not_ be able to hear him.

(Oh. Oh no.)

This is bad, and it was _so stupid_ of Atem to leavemaybe, because now Yuugi is  too old for an imaginary friend. He won’t _think_ Atem is something imaginary, will think Atem is real or _worse!_

Maybe—

Maybe—

 _Maybe_ — next time Atem will get to be with Yuugi always.

( _Should_ there be a next time? What about _this_ time? Why is Yuugi _never_ allowed to get old? Why why **why** —)

But it isn’t next time yet, it’s this time. For the moment, let us pretend that the perceived linearity of time applies here, time as Yuugi, and other such presently-living people see it. The present situation is this: Yuugi is fifteen years old.

Atem is waiting, Atem knows precisely how much time is left, why is there a next time, why?

That thought sticks with him.

* * *

 

It takes him some time to act on it, though. Nine lives gone, before he does. In the twentieth lifetime, Atem fits himself into Yuugi’s shadow and so is with Yuugi always.

If you were to catch a glimpse of Yuugi in the right light, you might see a second shadow there.

You might also assume you’re imagining things.

Atem in Yuugi’s shadow, with Yuugi always. The population of the whole world spikes in graphs that will be observed later, pop-u-la-tion- **boom**. People don’t die right, they die too fast or too _late_ , but if someone _notices_ this then they should tell Atem! They should come to Atem and say _Atem you are doing this wrong, you are loving Yuugi wrong oh Atem Atem Atem Atem._

Atem just

wants

to be told that he’s doing the right thing!

He wants to hear he’s making the _right_ choice or the wrong one! and he doesn’t know if he was ever alive – is that the – answer – you are looking for? He! doesn’t _know_ but if you would ask him he would tell you something he was alive maybe once maybe alive maybe _once maybe alive maybe **once maybe**_ G I V E us something to work for, something to do; forgive us Yuugi, _please_ forgive us, we are lonely, we are Atem and Atem is lonely and Atem is he and everything is Atem, eventually, and Yuugi did you have to put your head into Atem’s lap oh _Yuugi_ , how can you forgive other people so easily? Even people who do you harm? How **do** you?

* * *

 

In Yuugi’s tenth lifetime he paints Anubis. It’s golden and it doesn’t have a full jackal’s head, just streaks of watercolor shadows spilling across the canvas in a canine shape. Yuugi gets a barely-passing grade on it, throws it in the trashcan.

Atem pulls it out, just with the tips of his fingers. Then he eats it.

* * *

 

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

When Yuugi is eleven a boy in his class takes Yuugi behind the school and holds a lighter to his arm and Atem touches the flame from the lighter the second it flickers and it goes out and Atem, who is not-alive,

_I won’t forget_

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

When Yuugi is fourteen, Yuugi’s first kiss is with a boy in an alleyway that tastes like the [sixteen] many people who have been murdered there.

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

Oh, Atem is worrying

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

about all the times,

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

Yuugi,

(do not take the time to worry about the dead, Yuugi,)

Dies.

When Yuugi is fifteen, a schoolyard bully _hits_ Yuugi,

over and over,

and Atem,

Atem,

Atem,

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

Atem,

( _Yuugi has: two minutes, three seconds… two seconds… one second..._ )

**ATEM**

has realized

that **no one**

(do not take the time to worry about the dead,)

can

 **stop him**.

(consider

_Atem_

only

_watches Yuugi’s skin_

the

_bruise like flowers_

living

_and says:_

moment.)

NO.

 

 

 

 

Forgive him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> each time yuugi dies corresponds with an event in the manga, either something that happens to yuugi or his friends that puts them in danger, or something that corresponds to another death/danger that happens to someone else.


	3. the start of the path

The bully drops to the ground, with a thump that reminds Atem of half a heartbeat. And the bully could be dead but he is _not_ because Atem **sort of** knows how to play this game thank-you-very-much. Instead the bully is just stumbling. stum. bling. to the ground, is _on_ the ground, vivid hallucinations scraping at the backs of his eyes and Atem looks at Yuugi and thinks _you are everything I have,_ thinks _you are the best and only thing I have_ , thinks _I love you with all the weight of solid stone_ but Yuugi can’t hear him, Yuugi is bleeding too much to hear anyone, even him. Even Death.

Oh! Yuugi is on the ground _too!_ and Atem sits next to Yuugi, says: _Yuugi do you know what I have just done for you. Yuugi how do you **forgive**. The living moment, Yuugi._

Yuugi is crying. Yuugi is broken ribs, is bleeding, is concussion, is tears, is ( _Yuugi has: three seconds… two seconds… one second… … … … has: one year, six months, two days, six hours, eleven minutes, three seconds… two seconds… one second…_ ) hurting.

_Yuugi, do you know what I have just done for you. Yuugi, I am afraid. Yuugi, I wish you could hear me so I could make you forgive me. Yuugi, no one has ever forgiven me before, Yuugi, I would do it again, Yuugi, Yuugi, Yuugi. Yuuig, this is your twentieth life and I want you to turn twenty and live._

But:

One year. One priceless year, six months, two days, six hours, ten minutes, twenty seconds, nineteen seconds, eighteen seconds

* * *

In Yuugi’s seventh life, Atem noticed that some things are always consistent:

  1. When Yuugi dies, Yuugi is born.
  2. Yuugi never lives past the age of nineteen.
  3. Atem loves Yuugi _like_ homicide, _like_ arson, _like_ the-shatter-crash-of-broken-things. This feeling grows, the more time passes, the more of Yuugi’s lives Atem sees, each time Yuugi dies. This is probably a bad thing, he shouldn’t have a _bias_ , remember that once he was a living thing, remember that he no longer **is**.



The last consistency:

Yuugi is brave.

Atem doesn’t know what it’s like to be brave, he _doesn’t_ , he _**doesn’t**_ , you can’t prove that he knows what it’s like to have courage because he wouldn’t everever have

s  
   a  
      c  
         r  
            i  
               f  
                  i  
                     c  
                        e  
                           d

                              himself

 _because that would be the stupid-bravest thing someone could do_ and Yuugi likes card games, Yuugi likes dice games. One time when Yuugi is fifteen (Yuugi is fifteen more than a few times) Yuugi beats a man at chess a n d Atem loves Yuugi like heartbeats, which he’s heard about but never had. Like that though, he thinks. Suspects. He suspects that’s what love is like, the rattling of a muscle in the chest. Sometimes Atem starts thinking about Yuugi, about how much he loves Yuugi. And sometimes, when he starts thinking too much about how much he loves Yuugi, Atem reaches through everything that he is, **Death** is, finds something painful, and grips it tightly, to punish himself for his distraction from his destiny.

(Whatever that happens to be.)

(This time he’s chosen a **suicide**. A seal-yourself-away-to-stop-evil sort of pain. Moves it to his heart.)

 _Anyways_ Yuugi plays games, which Atem **certainly** knows nothing about (you can’t prove he knows); he loves Yuugi for his courage, wishes Yuugi could teach him (remind him) how.

But maybe Atem is learning! Maybe Atem is learning, because Atem is love and fire and promises, but mostly Atem is sitting on the couch and watching Yuugi play a boardgame with his friend. He doesn’t remember which of Yuugi’s lives this one is, but he knows Yuugi is laughing, and beautiful, and Yuugi’s eyes are so so wide that Atem feels like maybe if he stuck his tongue into them, he could taste shadows. He’s always wanted to know what that tastes like, the **shadows**. Instead, he thinks about music and makes his vocal cords into the shape of Ra/God/Zeus/old-mythos and he hums an old song, older than Christ.

He hums the notes, high and sad things that remind him of curling flame or deep shadow or Yuugi’s first kiss two – three – twelve deaths ago (the death when: Yuugi was beaten to death at school for a television program and _oh-god-I-hadn’t-meant-to-kill-him_ ), that time, that time that was, when Yuugi was younger and kissing a girl outside Yuugi’s middle school.

Yuugi’s lips touched the girl’s lips and Atem looked up from a CEO’s suicide and b r e a t h e d even though he didn’t have to, at the goodness of that act, and also at the **want** in his chest that ached for life, that wanted to live (Atem, as Death, or whatever he is, has wanted life since he became this, grabbed for it but never succeeded).

(Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe Atem is just **old** and **dead**.)

(No. That would be too simple. Atem wants to live, it’s true.)

Atem watched Yuugi have his first kiss and he couldn’t do anything but stop!

(and there are no words to explain the love and want in his chest, the abruptness of Atem’s stopping, like holding trillions of deaths, louder and louder, everyone who has ever died had a final breath after all! And Khafre with his heart he was there, and Atem was _there_ and he was **_there_** , and Atem was the heart and the god who judged it for im and too many final words spilling from mouths, and he ached)

and take a few steps forward, toward Yuugi, so he could watch this thing, this kissing.

Death is _hungry_ by nature, all the stories agree on that, that Death is hungry, and it takes, no matter its shape, always hungry. Death – when Death was he – watched Yuugi’s first kiss _what was his first Yuugi’s first kiss_ and Death wanted like – living. Like that, probably. Not like hunger. Like life.

So he. thinks about that and hums.

And Yuugi says: “That sounds nice.”

And Atem stops, abruptly.

No. Yuugi can’t _see_ him yet! Yuugi has

( _Yuugi has: one year, one month, twenty days, four hours, six minutes, fifteen seconds… fourteen seconds… thirteen seconds…_ )

time left until his twelfth death (he will be: seventeen; he will be: too young)! So: _why?_

And Atem doesn’t have enough time to worry before Yuugi’s head is resting in his lap

(oh)

smelling so strongly of sleepiness that Atem can almost imagine it, the being of the exhaustion. It’s not like he doesn’t know fatigue, because people have died from it so he knows it, but it is a thing – like heartbeats – that he can never touch.

But. Yuugi! Yuugi is looking at him, and that is so so so much more important! Yuugi is reaching up to trail fingers along Atem’s face and Atem makes a terrified sound, the terrified sound of someone who has _never!_ been touched. Oh no, not Atem, Atem was not ever meant for this.

“Your face,” Yuugi says, with a most serious expression, an expression that means… something, and pinches Atem’s cheek, moves the skin around, and Atem says _Stop_ in the form of a woman dying of illness, which is where Atem should _be_ right now, but he can’t, because Yuugi, and Yuugi says: “Your face looks like my face, mostly. Are you me?”

Atem closes his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Right,” says Yuugi, “okay. I don’t know either. You look like me but – not. Your skin is darker. Your nose is different. Your – there are little differences, but it’s hard to ignore…” and here Yuugi trails off, before picking up his thought again. “You should sing again, though. It sounds like – it’s like a song for the end of the world.”

“It is,” Atem (who is not-alive) manages, and so he sings.

And Yuugi laughs from his lap and says, “This is the best dream I’ve ever had.”

And Atem’s humming shatters again with a surprised laugh. He’s laughing, he’s…

They’re laughing together. Oh no. Oh no no no. Atem is consumed by this: one-year-one-month-twenty-days-three-hours-fifty-six-minutes-sixteen-seconds. fifteen seconds. fourteen seconds.


	4. ever

“You’re not really ‘the other me,’ are you?” Yuugi asks, sixteen years old and staring at the ceiling of the hospital room. He can feel the blood in his lungs. It stings.

He’s been beaten half to death, and he can’t help feeling like this has happened before, somehow. Before. Somehow.

“No,” says the thing sitting on the floor next to Yuugi’s bed. If Yuugi looks at it from the corner of his eye, it looks like him, almost, a similar silhouette, darker skinned but… similar. If he looks at it straight on, well, it _hurts_. So Yuugi doesn’t look at it straight on.

“Who are you, then?” he asks.

“I am Yuugi,” it says stubbornly.

“No. You’re not.”

“I am Atem,” it allows.

The name is familiar to Yuugi. Somehow.

It looks at him, eyes sad like sickness. “I am Death,” it adds. Its head tilts to the side, a jerky gesture; it looks like it’s mimicking something it’s seen, but doesn’t understand why people tilt their heads at all. “ _You_ are Yuugi.” It holds its tongue between its teeth for a second, like it’s waiting for something, and then says: “You have died fifteen times.”

“What?” Yuugi asks, alarmed, and then he starts coughing. It waits. Patiently.

“Your food was poisoned,” it says. “You were electrocuted. You got sick. You fell. You drowned. You were beaten, more than once. You—”

“Stop,” Yuugi begs it, and he feels his heart beat faster, he can’t stop coughing, it _hurts_.

“I had hoped that this. Would be the last time,” it says, and now it isn’t looking at him. Yuugi’s chest hurts.

* * *

Oh! **No!** Yuugi won’t _stop_ coughing and this is why Atem never tells Yuugi, never tells Yuugi, never ever ever ever _ever_ tells Yuugi that Yuugi can’t stay dead.

He had thought. that. this would be the time. He had hoped that maybe Yuugi would

 

 

 

live.

 

 

 

(Yuugi has: _one minute, twenty-six seconds… twenty-five seconds… twenty-four secnds…_ )

* * *

Death has taken billions and trillions of people, do you understand that? More people than could ever exist at once. Dead. Gone. Snuffed out.

You have to understand that, to understand this: Yuugi is the only one it’s ever loved.


	5. weight

“Do you ever wonder if… someone is looking out for you?” Yuugi asks, when Yuugi is sixteen years old, in his twentieth lifetime, and _not_ the victim of murder _not_ dead by any beatings, _not_ electrocuted, ever, the miraculous survivor of a warehouse fire, no drowning, no suffocation, no accidents, no falling, _no beatings_. Yuugi got an ear pierced recently, to go with the other jewelry he wears, and Atem’s hands still ache from the infection that he took away from Yuugi and settled, gently, into another teenager’s ear.

His head is throbbing. Yuugi is wonderful. so. his whole head hurts but—

 _Well_ , the scales are almost even. Imagine scales. Imagine they are golden, imagine them. Atem is sitting at the table next to Honda ( _has: sixty-two years, six months, eighteen minutes, twelve seconds…_ ) and Jounouchi ( _has: twenty-nine years, a month, two hours, five minutes, eleven seconds…_ ), even though neither of them can see him and if he sits any closer to Yuugi he can hear echoes of _hello, you’re the other me, aren’t you?_ and he thinks, at Yuugi, even though Yuugi can’t hear him: _do you ever think anyone looks out for you? I do. Hello._

“You really believe in that kind of thing?” Jounouchi asks, sipping his soda and giving Yuugi an only slightly incredulous look.

“I don’t know,” Yuugi says, running a hand through his hair, “it’s just a thought, Jou.”

Jounouchi sighs, rolls his eyes with a good-natured smile. “Okay. If you mean all those escapes from death,” (Atem thinks: _not escapes from Death_ ) “then… yeah. It looks like there might be something there.

Anzu ( _has: seventy-four years, four months, fifteen days, two hours, forty-eight minutes, six seconds… five seconds… four seconds…_ ), next to them, laughs. “Someone up there _liiiiiikes_ you,” she croons, then laughs into her hand at how s illy she finds the whole thing and Atem Atem _Atem_

(someone up there likes you)

feels his heart lurch like a dead thing trying not to be dead, trying to live. live. His heart is warm. Someone up there. Someone down _h e r e_ is all very liking for you, Yuugi, and Yuugi laughs and says, “No way.”

And Atem can feel now that this is only a joke. Maybe it has only ever been a joke. The air breaks like hearts do and Yuugi sips his cola and it’s all just a joke.

 

* * *

 

And what prompted that twentieth-life change? Ask Atem and he cannot tell you, could not even if he wanted to. If you asked, though, he would probably explain this:

Life nineteen,

flames climb up Yuugi’s body like greedy things, bright greedy flame, and  
Atem (who still, _still_ is not-alive) wants to run fingers through those flames. But he doesn’t, what he does instead is he crouches next to Yuugi and watches Yuugi sob and wince and burn.

“Atem,” Yuugi says, croaks, _manages_ , and Atem can taste hurts in the air, knows it's almost time. He doesn’t have to check. He lets his weight fall and so he is cross-legged, and runs his fingers along his own neck, where the chain of a necklace might sit, and watches a n d runs his fingers along his neck, and watches, and loves.

( _Yuugi has: thirty-one seconds… thirty seconds… twenty-nine seconds…_ )

 _Yes_ , Atem says back.

“Please stay,” Yuugi says. “I don’t want to be alone.”

 _Always,_ says Atem, and he means it with all that he is.

“Is it nice, in the afterlife?” Yuugi asks.

_I don’t know. I’ve never been._

“Can we go together?” Yuugi says, as he convulses.

( _Yuugi has: nineteen seconds… eighteen seconds…_ )

 _I never found the way,_ Atem tells him, and if Atem was a person and not Death, Atem would cry, maybe, but he’s not so he isn’t so he doesn’t so he won’t.

He doesn’t say _You’ve never found it either_ but he’s thinking it, with a selfish spark of joy like spraypaint igniting.

He watches Yuugi’s fingers twitch, final death-movements, watches those fingers twitch toward Atem’s hand, but Atem doesn’t move. He doesn’t move and Atem doesn’t move.

Because Atem is not allowed to touch.

( _Yuugi has: seven seconds… six seconds…_ )

He can't touch. It's a **rule**.

( _five seconds…_ )

(he wants to)

( _four seconds… three seconds…_ )

He starting to forget, after nineteen times,

( _two seconds…_ )

why he shouldn't.

_(o n e)_

* * *

 

In this lifetime Yuugi does not take as many risks, and now Atem is afraid, Atem is afraid of pushingYuugicloser, t o the edge, until Yuugi is gone again. Maybe Atem is sick of Yuugi being gone. Maybe Atem is sick of Yuugi dying again and again and again (don’t go, Yuugi) and again and again, w h o knows!

Whatever the reason Atem does not! touch still does not leave Yuugi though. He’s learning what crying “is” and it is somehow new, one year later Yuugi’s electrocuted by a stun-gun in a warehouse but by chance, the gun falls from the gangster’s hands and the fingerprints on top of the gun contain seemingly random numbers and your own time of death, if you look for it, and Atem falls (again) (again?) (againandagainandagainandagainan) to the ground and **cries** , at how much he **hurts** , _Yuugi help me, Yuugi do you forgive me, please forgive me,_ someone slices an inch off Yuugi’s hair with a knife and Yuugi sits down, _right next to_ Atem and says, “Thank god” and Atem thinks _no_ with a snarl like wild beasts make. How unfair, this.

Atem’s tears fall to the ground in a way that is familiar to him, maybe too familiar. In so very many years when this warehouse is growing plants-and-flowers-and-nature-takes-back-the-world nothing will grow where his tears fell, nothing at all, not even the tiniest flower, or dirt that is soil which can make flowers grow, and that is all the planet will have left of Yuugi. That’s it.

That’s _it._

It’s the closest Atem will get to honoring Yuugi. When he hurt less, back when Yuugi was still dying, he used to go visit Yuugi’s graves, the graves that happened _each_ new time Yuugi died, and he would run his fingers over the name _Yuugi_ and watch the name _Yuugi_ wear down, because all stone erodes, and all things die.

Now he never leaves Yuugi, not ever, and that means this: The stone is fine. Atem’s head hurts, behind his eye, as though metal has been shoved _into_ his eye, but that’s fine, the stone is fine, Death wonders if it can die, but at least the stone is fine, the stone is fine, the stone is _fine,_ Yuugi.

Maybe someone else would try testing their perceived immortality but: this is Yuugi, but: Yuugi wouldn’t believe he deserved it, but: Yuugi would rather assume _co-in-ci-dence_ than assume that someone was looking out for him, for Yuugi, ever Yuugi, but: Yuugi doesn’t believe that he is worthy of this, Atem knows.

* * *

 

Or, no, maybe that isn't sufficient.

Again: What prompted the change?

“I _know_ you,” Yuugi says, Yuugi slurshalfasleep, b-e-e-r in Yuugi’s belly, Atem is sitting on the edge of Yuugi’sfriend’s bed, _b r e a t h i n g_ in the air, listening to the sound of Yuugi’s heart which resonates through everything, but only if you’re Atem and only if you’re listening for it.

Like this: _Yuugi has: two months_ ba-dum _two days_ ba-dum _six hours_ ba-dum _twenty-two minutes_ ba-dum _twelve seconds…_ I _eleven seconds…_ know _ten seconds…_ you.

Yuugi is trying to sit up, but the weight of middle of the night exhaustion in Yuugi’s body is too much, too much, and the arm across Yuugi’s chest is too casual and too much and blond hair and Jou-nou-chi and he’s a protector, _he’s Yuugi’s friend,_ but Atem is too. But that arm draped over Yuugi’s chest. All over too much for Yuugi to sit up and say _hello, somehow I know you._

“You’re the other me,” Yuugi says. “Right? You died, but now you’re back.”

Atem opens his mouth, to say something, closes it.

“I keep thinking,” Yuugi says dreamily, with the weight of _honesty_ and ( _Yuugi has two months, two days, six hours, twenty-two minutes, four seconds… three seconds… two seconds…_ ) _death,_ “that if I have the right dream, I’ll be able to see you again.”

Atem doesn’t know what to say.

Yuugi sighs, says, “I’m sorry,” with a voice that cracks and warbles. “You should be alive, not me, I don’t deserve any of this.”

“You do,” says Atem, with strained urgency, because he’s seen Yuugi speak with real honesty and walk a lost child all the way home and shove someone out of the way of a heavy-handed punch so that he could take that punch instead, and mostly he has seen Yuugi smile, and laugh, and deserve it. This. This _living_. He **stands** up from the edge of the bed, listens to Yuugi’s friend _b r e a t h e_ , and crouches in front of Yuugi’s face, so close that Atem’s eyes are reflected in Yuugi’s eyes are reflected in Atem’s eyes are reflected in Yuugi’s. “You do,” he says again: “Yuugi, you deserve to be alive.”

And Yuugi beings to cry, these low and broken sobs, and Atem considers: Just this. He just. watches.

“I keep saying I won’t,” Yuugi says through tears as heavy as stone, “be so careless, right? I keep saying _no, not this time_ but--”

The two of them lock eyes for one beautiful second. “You’re the only one who ever says I deserve to live,” Yuugi breathes. “You’re the only one who knows I feel this way, who doesn’t try to make me make the problem look like something else, who doesn’t tell me I’m not really lonely, the only one who knows me this well, and I _made you up_ , and--”

Yuugi cuts off, his voice fading away as his mouth slams shut with a knife-sharp _clack_ , a clamping teeth-on-teeth sound.

“I’m sorry,” Atem says.


	6. no no no no no

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suicide tw

Atem did it _wrong,_ he is wrong so wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong, he’s never in his not-life been more wrong, he is. wrong. but Death keeps _being_ a person, or trying to, he and he keeps being Atem and Atem keeps _going to Yuugi_ , going to Yuugi. He keeps _being_ , and this is the only time Atem has been he has been _Death_ has _been_. Mostly he has hidden away from the world and avoided things that are real and alive, and he accepted that as the way things are. As what he deserved. He has eaten the offerings. He has ignored the pleas. He has tasted meat from animals once those animals _d i e,_ weighed hearts, and tempered faith.

He has not pretended to be alive, and he has not walked among the living. Not ever. No, never, he’d never have done such a thing. Oh, oh, no. If he was alive once, he is not anymore, and the rules state that he can't do that.

Atem never touches Yuugi, of course, nor does he speak to him, only sits and listens to Yuugi breathe in his sleep, and feels a knife-sharp stab of excitement whenever Yuugi touches him, when he is Atem and Atem is touched by Yuugi. A little voice in the back of his head ticks away life-seconds in each of Yuugi’s lives, (Yuugi has: _seven years, ten years, one year, twelve minutes, one month, eight months, thirty-two seconds... thirty-one seconds... thirty seconds... four hours, six months, four seconds... three seconds... two seconds..._ ) and Atem worries about messing Yuugi's life up, ruining it.

Sometimes he curls into the space in Yuugi’s bed, Yuugi rolls over in Yuugi’s sleep, Yuugi’s arm brushes against Atem’s skin that is Yuugi’s skin and Atem has been dead for so many-many years that it’s barely Atem’s skin at all, but it doesn’t matter whose skin it is really, whose it looks like, because: do you understand that Atem who is death _has_ **never**

**been**

_**touched?** _

Do you understand? Do you? Atem wants _everything_ and he gets it, eventually, but not this, this is new, he can eat the dead but not Yuugi, he's not dead, he can never _stay_ dead, and so he sleeps in Yuugi’s bed when nobody else is there, and when someone else is there, someone else, someone who is not Yuugi in Yuugi's bed,  _well_ , Atem watches, puts them his “fingers” to their hearts, listens to the time they have left, listens to the voice that tells him this, he _listens_ to that voice says (has: _forty-nine years, sixty-one years, fifty-eight years, twenty years..._ ) and he feels this aching _**howl** _ of rage, because here’s the thing: these _people_ , these boys and girls and other people who Yuugi _acknowledges_ and _knows_ and _speaks_ to, all these _people_ have all this _time_ and _Y u u g i_ does _not_.

Atem is who he is and Atem sleeps in Yuugi’s bed and Atem takes each second he sees Yuugi and treats it like a treasure, or like a grain of sugar, and tucks it away for later.

He loves secrets. They’re one of his favorite things.

Other favorite things:

  * Egypt
  * Ta'amiya
  * Coffee
  * Dead meat
  * When people slit throats for his altars, which they don’t always do anymore, not really
  * Pop music
  * Domino City
  * That one color that human beings can’t see and
  * Everyone he’s ever met
  * and
  * and,
  * and:
  * and:
  * and:
  * And:
  * Yuugi



And so Yuugi’s been alive for _years_ by now, Yuugi's almost twenty years old, and Atem’s sleeping in Yuugi’s bed, and he likes to go through Yuugi’s closet and sit across the table from Yuugi when Yuugi eats breakfast at the table, and Atem drums his feet against the chair and watches Yuugi. And sometimes Yuugi gets stupid-teenage-drunk or Yuugi doesn’t have enough sleep or an accident happens that pushes Yuugi _thisclose_!!!!!!!! to death! And Atem can look at Yuugi who can look at Atem and say _I know you_ and Atem’s chest can explode like a bomb on a ferris wheel, killing dozens.

 

* * *

Yuugi feels, sometimes, in his chest, in his heart of hearts, that someone loves him.

Someone  _else_ , that is. He knows his family loves him, that his friends love him, that the love that fills his heart comes from so many sources, but there always feels like there's something extra, the love of someone else, the love of one more person than Yuugi could list, if he had to make a list of everyone who loves him.

He doesn't know. Maybe it doesn't matter.

He has other things to focus on anyway. Last week, he got a new video game. Last night, he was almost mugged.

Today, he'll beat the final level in the game, and tonight he'll wonder how the mugger mysteriously dropped dead before he could hit him.

 

* * *

 

And—

A list of lives:

  * Beaten to death
  * Car accident
  * Food poisoning
  * House fire
  * Overdose
  * Choking



Atem has never touched anyone until he did and now it has been years and he misses Yuugi, misses Yuugi, misses Yuugi,

  * Drowning
  * Fall



_misses_ Yuugi,

  * down a flight of stairs



and he won’t let Yuugi die. He won’t he won’t, it's better that Yuugi lives, and it's better that Atem saves Yuugi, so he doesn't have to watch Yuugi die again, because _what! if!_ Yuugi doesn't come back next time, what if there _isn’t_ a next time, he can always try again, but he

  * Ear piercing infection
  * Mugging gone wrong



misses Yuugi, misses talking to Yuugi, misses Yuugi saying “I know you” with Yuugi’s voice all rusty and creaking like

  * A collapsed building
  * Scorpion sting
  * Shot in the chest
  * Warehouse fire
  * Attempted suicide



And for the first time Yuugi will turn 20 today Yuugi will turn twenty years old, Yuugi is almost at the age the curse doesn't everever let him reach, Yuugi is almost twenty, almost the age he's never been before, and that is: two zero years old. (Yuugi has: _two minutes... four seconds... three seconds..._ ) and Atem is standing on the side of the highway and watching Yuugi, who is crying, who is Yuugi crying, and Atem considers cars, considers how easily they can stop moving, considers miracles. Watches Yuugi pace back-and-forth, and sits on top of the telephone-pole, and drums his feet against the side. No matter where his feet land the morse code spells out _s-a-v-e-s-a-v-e_ Yuugi can't hear it, so he is alright. Yuugi paces back-and-forth-and-back-

  * Beaten to death



and it’s the third university exam in a month Yuugi’s failed, "I just don't think it's interesting if it isn't like a puzzle," Yuugi says. "I feel like there's a puzzle I should have completed by now, but I haven't found it."

"Don't worry too much about that, try worryin’ about yourself some more," s i g h s Jounouchi, Atem agrees, and sometimes Yuugi’s eyes twitch to Atem and Atem thinks: _oh no not yet I love you p l e a s e—_

He is thinking this: he is. thinking. he is thinking _that_ when Yuugi turns twenty years old, it will be all right. He will be able to say c _ongratulations! happy birthday you broke the curse on you and I love you happy birthday hello congratulations! I love you._ Because then: the rules are **broken** , the rules are gone and y _ou won't die-and-return Yuugi! you don’t have to die! you will never die because oh! I love you oh! I love you oh! I love you are twenty years old and I love you oh!_

But until then Atem wants to ruin nothing, keeps clutching Yuugi in his hands, metaphorically, like he can keep Yuugi safe that way. Like drinks that spill from the gaps in Yuugi’s teeth, when Yuugi , Yuugi is crying, Yuugi is breaking glass, Yuugi is falling (falling) (once) (maybe) into the arms of the friends he has in this life, but didn't have in others, not since the _first_ one, (Atem is not crying is not crying is not crying) Yuugi says: _I can't do anything right,_  says: _why am I alive:_ Yuugi find Kai-ba says: _Please. Duel. Me._

Yuugi locks himself in his bedroom and sits on the ground and sobs and sobs and sobs. Atem wants to help Yuugi, but he can't. Instead Atem sits next to Yuugi and tells Yuugi about all the different ancient games played in Egypt – Yuugi sits and cries and probably wonders why Yuugi is thinking about old games but that is because Yuugi can hear Atem, if Yuugi concentrates, so. _checkers and mancala and dice and senet and_

and-forth Yuugi goes, and Atem is hurting hurting _hurting_. You see? Death should not stop death. Death is death and Death is not stopping death and holding back Yuugi’s death makes Atem’s bones ache like – _like_ – Atem doesn’t

  * Attempted suicide
  * Another bully
  * Gunshot wounds



**NO.**

know what it hurts like. Only that it does. he wishes he could **ask** Yuugi! Then again he wishes lots of things, but he can't ask Yuugi! Because Yuugi is alive and only the dead-and-dying can hear Atem! So he doesn't ask, he shifts his weight on the telephone pole and rests his head on his arms and prods the back of his mouth with his tongue, licks at his teeth, tastes, (Yuugi has: _one minute, seventeen seconds... sixteen seconds... fifteen seconds..._ ) wonders what it’ll be this time. Will Yuugi fall? Get shot? One minute is _not_  a long time! It’ll have to be very fast. Atem wonders. Rests his head in his hands.

_con_

  * Beaten to death
  * Beaten to death
  * Beaten to death
  * Beaten to death



_siders_. He could do this for years, probably! _Decades,_ even. he could watch Yuugi pace back and forth for as long as it takes and

Yuugi

stops. Checks Yuugi’s watch. Opens Yuugi’s mouth, says:

“I know you’re there.”

* * *

Yuugi makes a left turn. Yuugi makes a left turn. Yuugi makes a left turn.

"Why do you keep going one way?" asks Jounouchi, who is watching Yuugi play an RPG. "Why always left?"

"No," Yuugi says, nestling his chin against Jounouchi's arm. "It's a rule for getting out of mazes. I don't remember where I learned it, but it's the quickest way. Always choose the same direction, eventually you get out.

"Does it really work?" Jounouchi asks, and Yuugi shrugs. His bangs fall onto his face. He tries to blow it out, without much success.

"Tried it a few times myself," Yuugi confirms.

* * *

 And human being couldn’t tell that Yuugi’s voice was full of ache, but Atem can, Atem can taste it on his tongue, Atem wonders who Yuugi’s talking to.

“I know you’re there,” Yuugi says again, and Yuugi’s looking around like Yuugi’s looking for someone oh oh oh no _someone_ Yuugi is looking for oh someone oh looking someone for oh no. no.

“You’ve been looking after me all this time, right?” Yuugi says soft oh no oh no Atem feels a hook between his ribs that pulls like something he doesn’t know, he is

falling off his perch, where he was, and he is stumbling towards Yuugi who is saying, “I just want to talk.”

 _Hello_ drops from Atem’s mouth like someone being

  * Beaten to death



, all of Atem's bones are the word **NO** , and Atem looks at Yuugi, and Atem notices again that they are the same height.

Yuugi takes a step backwards, face rippling in what Atem thinks is: _shock-fear-horror-anger-love-disappointment-hurt-fear-shock._

“Why do you look like me?” Yuugi asks, voice rattling, and Atem rolls his shoulders, sucks lips between teeth, considers saying _Because_ , decides that this is not working and twists the world, says “Because” instead.

Around the two of them time slows. The world belongs to Atem – the dust that is dead skin, the highway that is dead plastic, metal, dead dinosaurs, the carbon dioxide, Yuugi. Everything is Atem’s. Why do you look like me?

“Because.” _Because I love you._

With the world like-this, each second hits Atem like a stab wound. (Yuugi has:  _twenty-six seconds..._ )

“Right,” says Yuugi, and then again, “Right. Because.” There is something in Yuugi’s voice that says Yuugi is trying to make sense of this, and failing; Atem does not blame Yuugi, for that. Atem doesn’t understand a lot of things, like breathing, and the color of Yuugi’s eyes, and why the glint of gold carries melancholy memories, and why this keeps happening.

Yuugi closes his eyes, breathes, asks, “Are you what’s been stopping me from dying.” Asks it like the answer’s already there present, asks it without a question mark, solid as a rock, solid as weight.

“Yes,” Atem says, and now it is Atem’s voice that’s shaking, trembling at the seams with how much it hurts and how much he wants Yuugi to love him, for denying his _n a t u r e,_ for being the opposite of what he is and all for Yuugi oh Yuugi oh _Yuugi_ oh. He wants Yuugi to love him for this and Yuugi doesn't, won't ever, hasn't yet.

“Why?” asks Yuugi, like a wounded thing, and then Yuugi pauses, mutters – Yuugi’s eyes are still closed, (has:  _twenty-four seconds_ ) – “Because.”

“Yes,” says Atem, who has forgotten how to speak. Nineteen years since he has. He wants Yuugi to ask him to sing. He wants to sing, because words do not – right. Not like that. “You–” he tries, makes a sound like an animal being beaten to death, a high scream of pain, tries again: “I didn’t–” Again. “You shouldn’t–” Again, Atem. “You can't die again, Yuugi. Please. _No_.”

Yuugi makes the end of the same sound, the same animal, and begins to cry; shaking Yuugi’s head from side to side, Yuugi says, “You can’t keep doing this, okay?”

“I _can_ ,” Atem says, takes a step forward, his hands tremble at his sides, his hands want to touch Yuugi, comfort him, can’t touch can’t touch, “I _will_ , Yuugi,” he says, _Yuugi_. Says it again, for the joy of it. “Yuugi. You can’t die. I won't let you, Yuugi, _partner_ \--”

“You have to stop,” Yuugi says, looking Atem in the eyes, and Atem’s hands twitch, reach, Atem’s hands make fists and arc towards his face like bullets and Atem chokes, makes a high-voiced sound like: ( _nineteen_ ).

“What?” Yuugi asks, and Yuugi is crouching on the ground now, next to Atem who has fallen.

“Nineteen times,” Atem says, like hurting. “You were beaten to death. You were shot.”

Yuugi looks like he can't find words.

“You got sick,” he says, looking at Yuugi, shaking, “you overdosed, your father’s car crashed, you were poisoned, you were shot again, you got sick again,” and he can’t stop, a stream of Yuugis like water spilling from between his fingers, “stabbed in the stomach, stabbed in the neck, electrocuted, burned in a fire, shot again, beaten to death…” and then he can’t keep going, because he’s remembered what crying looks and feels and sounds like, which is: terrible.

“Oh,” says Yuugi, but Atem can barely hear Yuugi because it has been so many years and Atem is so tired and it is so wrong that Atem is crying, and here, and not anywhere else, oh.

He is so much that Yuugi’s arms around him barely even register – but there they are, and Atem falls into them, like: like: like: like: like! like! falling. His chin is far away from Yuugi’s shoulder, and his tears do not touch Yuugi’s skin, and Yuugi’s skin does not touch Atem’s skin, he is warm, Yuugi is warm, “It’s okay,” Yuugi says, “I know that must’ve been hard for you, right? It must have been so hard.”

Atem can’t breathe through the feeling of Yuugi’s hand patting his back. For a second he almost forgets about his failure. He should answer; instead he says the terrified final sound of a woman stabbed to death during a burglary gone wrong. Tries to say _you can’t die again_ , can’t get it past his lips.

“But you have to let me go, okay?” Yuugi says, _twenty_. years. Leans back. Looks at Atem. _twentyyears_ , Yuugi brushes Atem’s hair out of his eyes, says, “You have to let me go.”

Atem tries to say _You’ll just come back_ , tries to say _You’re so close to twenty_ , tries to say _Yuugi_ , just makes a sound. The sound twists and Atem says “ **NO**.”

But Yuugi’s unfolding arms and Yuugi is standing and Atem says “ **No** ” again, angry, hurting, no, no _no no no **no**_ , Yuugi turns to look towards the highway, takes a step, and all of Atem’s bones are the word **NO** and he reaches out and grabs Yuugi’s wrist and

(Yuugi has:  _two seconds... one second..._ )

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me [on tumblr](http://kanekikiss.tumblr.com/)


End file.
